Jane and You

By Mary Tweedy

JANE AND YOU is a contemporary novel in the Magic Realism genre. After the loss of her husband, Jane, a middle-aged Catholic woman, begins seeing the same unknown young man wherever she goes. When they finally meet, she discovers that he may or may not be something infernal and a very unusual relationship develops between the two. Their journey takes them from a park bench to the night clubs of Los Angeles. JANE AND YOU explores, with some humor, the aftermath of personal loss, grief, healing and redemption through the eyes of a woman whose faith is wavering.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mary Tweedy
• Release date: Feb 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370107100

Mary Tweedy

Mary Tweedy was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut. She was educated in Art History, Classical Archaeology, Classical Languages and Anthropology at Pomona College and Indiana University. She spent a year studying in Paris. After completing her undergraduate education, she attended Archaeological Field School at Native American sites in southern Illinois and conceived a great respect and love for Native American cultures, which lead to the writing of her first novel, CAPTIVE DAUGHTER, ENEMY WIFE. This is an adventure novel that takes place in the 17th century, taking a young Neutral woman through the trauma of capture by the Five Nations and forcible adoption into the Onondaga tribe. She recently completed her second novel, JANE AND YOU, a contemporary novel in the Magic Realism genre. This explores, with some humor, the aftermath of personal loss, grief, healing and redemption through the eyes of a middle-aged Catholic woman. She encounters a strange young man who may or may not be something infernal. A very unusual relationship develops. Ms. Tweedy currently lives in San Diego with her husband and sons.

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JANE AND YOU

Mary Tweedy

Copyright 2018 by Mary Tweedy

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedication

To my brother, Rick Ciaccio, who read my first completed version and encouraged me to publish it. To my friends Lee, Alison, Cathy, and to my wonderful sister-in-law, Robin, who read and offered valuable criticism. And, as always, to my husband who read and edited the book at various stages and without whom I would be lost in more ways than one.

JANE AND YOU

Chapter 1

It was hot. It had been unseasonably hot all summer. This was Southern California and it was supposed to be temperate year-round. Perhaps the global warming people were right; or perhaps the world was just doing what it was going to do without regard for the various creatures that infested it. One of these days Jane felt that she really ought to look into the whole debate, do some research, find some reliable sources, and read them. A persistent buzzing next to her left ear caught her attention and she flapped her hand at the offending insect, sending it temporarily buzzing into the face of her niece, Catherine, who sat next to her on the pew. The top panels of the stained-glass windows had been cranked open, a breeze had yet to accept the invitation. A trickle of sweat ran down the back of Jane’s neck and her glasses slipped down her nose.

On the whole, John would be pleased. He was a convert, and far more traditional and passionate about the bells and smells than Jane. He'd married Jane with the clear understanding that he had no intention of converting, that she was on her own as far as religion went. Gerry was born a few years later, and despite or maybe because of Jane's very occasional and lackadaisical attendance at Mass, John had announced that he had been doing some reading, had had what might be called a religious experience, and was considering converting. A year or so later he had been baptized during the Easter Vigil Mass. That he would undergo this ceremony, enrobed in a long gown, submerged in the tiled pool by the infant baptismal font at the back of the church, in front of the congregation, was a testament to the depth of his commitment. He was very much a man who did not like to draw undue attention to himself; nor did he like to look silly. Jane supposed it was all in the way one carried oneself, because John had not looked silly. From then on, they had become the most observant of Catholics.

The Funeral Mass was reasonably well attended. The Knights and the Women's Guild were well represented. Of the latter, sixteen of the twenty or so regulars had come. Judy and her husband were back east visiting a daughter, Samantha or Sandra or maybe Cynthia, and spoiling several grandchildren. Carrie was nursing a newly broken ankle. And Pat and Maureen were in Ireland with a tour group visiting sites, pagan and Christian, as well as a smattering of pubs, which, Jane supposed, were nondenominational. The girls had asked her along, but she and John were going to make plans of their own.

Since his conversion, John had always wanted the whole ceremony, interment, incense, and strict adherence to the order of the Mass, with no eulogy. The Mass was the Mass and the deceased was incidental to the whole thing. Jane had chosen the readings and music with John's preferences in mind. Nothing sappy. The first reading was from Isaiah and involved feasts of rich food as well as a certain amount of destruction. John loved food, and destruction in a reading certainly sounded serious. John had been a lector and would have loved reading this selection. Plus, there was the bonus that this particular reading came with the 23rd Psalm. Until Father Garcia had filled her in, Jane hadn't realized that the first reading and the psalm were basically a twofer. It was like going to a car dealership where, if you got the leather seats, you had to get the upgraded stereo system. Or maybe that wasn't quite it.

Anyway, the 23rd Psalm was for her benefit. It was probably the most widely heard, commonly used psalm out there. It should have become trite, but it hadn't. It was all cool refreshing water and green soft grass and someone kind and powerful, if a little stern, protecting you while you had a lovely nap. How could that get old? Actually, it sounded a bit like Ireland in the pictures she had seen. She wondered how Pat and Maureen were doing.

Father Garcia had just finished the Gospel reading. He’d chosen the one about separating sheep from goats. She briefly considered that goats had gotten a very bad rap. It was probably because of those slits they had for pupils. Talk about judging by appearances. Well, in any case, John was a sheep, she was sure of it. If anyone had fed or clothed the poor, as well as given money to that end, it was John. He and Gerry had made a habit of volunteering at least once a month at St. Vincent de Paul. She had been the one holding tight to the purse strings, it had been John who had gently encouraged her to unclench and give regularly and always a bit more than she’d felt comfortable with. It was just that you never knew when you were going to need that money.

It was comforting: the ritual, the kneeling, the standing, the bowing, all at prescribed times. Everyone doing everything almost but not quite together so that it sounded like the fluttering of a flock of birds taking off, noisy and awkward, but getting there in the end. She liked the occasional coughs and sneezes as well. Ginny from the choir was there with her seven-year old twins, Agnes and Birdy. She couldn’t remember what Birdy’s real name was, but their frequent and audible whispers (apparently one of the girls was hungry and the other had dropped a coin under the kneeler and couldn’t find it) added to the feeling that there was life here as well as death.

Jane had had John brought in to the recorded strains of the Dies Irae chanted by some order of monks or another. The traditional choir was there, wearing their albs, but they hadn’t had the time to work up this hymn to an acceptable level nor, to be honest, had they had the ability. John would have loved the aura of mystery and sanctity that the group of rich male voices chanting the ancient hymn in the large echoing space created. Jane had made it up to the choir by giving them I Am the Bread of Life and How Great Thou Art to sink their teeth into. How could anyone not feel uplifted and carried away while singing those, and everyone knew them so the congregation wouldn’t feel left out.

Last night had been the vigil. Lois had done a lovely job of arranging things. There was a sign-in book, candles, a program allowing ample time for all those that had memories to share to get up and share them, and a large board with photos. Photos of John and the Knights: John as a young man, John and Jane in their wedding photo, John and Jane as a young couple, John and Jane with Gerry at various stages of infancy and childhood: at baptism, in preschool, Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, the high school band tournaments, dropping Gerry off at college, skateboard in hand.

Jane rather wished that Lois had not chosen that last picture, but she’d left everything to Lois. She’d handed her boxes of old photos and left her to it, not wanting to think about any of it. The skateboard looked so innocent. Gerry had not liked helmets. They impeded his vision and made his head hot, he said. You worried about children all the time; from the moment you conceived them. First it was whether they’d live to see the light of day, then it was crib death, choking, illness, abduction, car accidents, it just never seemed to be what you worried about that took them away. Charlie, a friend of theirs, had lost his daughter to flesh-eating bacteria. One moment she was a top-level soccer player looking at a full scholarship to a school in New Mexico and the next she was in the hospital losing limbs and finally her life to a rare illness that Charlie had probably never even heard of before. It was like the worrying was a shield and if you just tortured yourself with everything that could possibly go wrong, then those things couldn’t happen because, well… you’d prepared for them, you’d built a barrier and they couldn’t get in; but there was always that one chink. Something you hadn’t thought about, and that was what snuck in; and there you were all unsuspecting and looking in a different direction.

The vigil had been long, but people had said very nice things about John. There were genuinely nice things to say. John had been a good man, a warm, richly quiet man who had savored the small things in life, a good involved parish member who had loved his son and his wife. There was a subtle sweetness and kindness to John that had brought people together. Men liked him for his wit and because they didn’t have to be on their guard around him. Women liked him because he was gentle and listened when they spoke. He was unexpectedly funny at no one’s expense.

Losing Gerry had wounded them both almost beyond the ability to go on, but John had held on to his faith and had dragged them both back, raw and hurting, to a life without Gerry. They’d plunged back into the Church community, pulling it around them like a down comforter against the cold. Now John had left, suddenly and without her. But she wouldn’t, couldn’t think about that now. She was still in that merciful state of non-feeling, numb and living in one seemingly eternal moment after another. Nothing was real. It was all a flickering show, a not very well-done home movie put together by a stranger.

Aunt Jane. Aunt Jane?

Jane felt a nudge at her elbow and heard Catherine whispering in her ear. Communion was beginning and people were waiting for the widow to step into the aisle first. Jane managed to convey the appropriate orders to her limbs and they obeyed her, moving her into the central aisle, walking her up to the priest, opening her mouth to receive the host, urging her vocal chords to make the appropriate response, then walking her back to her seat. One more thing done.

The strains of How Great Thou Art swelled from the organ, Jane felt Catherine nudge her again and Jane slid out of the front pew and followed the pallbearers, eight Knights in full regalia, as they escorted the coffin on its wheeled gurney and processed out of the church. The coffin was loaded into the waiting hearse without incident though more than one of the Knights was red in the face and sweating noticeably. Jane had a sudden image of what the outcome might have been if the Knights, whose average age hovered somewhere in their 60s, had attempted to hoist the coffin up onto their shoulders in the traditional fashion. Jane felt the corners of her mouth turn up and an irresistible urge to laugh rise from somewhere in her stomach. She covered her face in her handkerchief and moved quickly to the family car with her head bent. Catherine slipped into the driver’s side to find Jane seated, hand on her forehead, quietly snorting and giggling with tears running down her face.

Holy Cross Cemetery was only a few miles from the church but, by the time Catherine had pulled into the lot near the area where John’s grave was located, Jane had regained her composure. Once the coffin had been put in place, she and Catherine, followed by the smaller group that had chosen to come to the graveside service, walked up the hill to stand in a circle around the coffin

Our brother, John, has gone to his rest in the peace of Christ. May the Lord now welcome him to the table of God’s children in heaven. With faith and hope in eternal life, let us assist him with our prayers. Let us pray to the Lord also for ourselves. May we who mourn be reunited one day with John; together may we meet Christ Jesus when He who is our life appears in glory.

Father Garcia’s voice faded in and out.

Jesus Christ is the firstborn of the dead; to Him be glory and power forever and ever.

Amen.

Jane lifted her head and glanced at the people around her. Most were looking at Father Garcia or the coffin in front of them. A friend of John’s whose name she didn’t remember was glancing down at the watch on his wrist. Lois was looking at Jane, but dropped her eyes when she saw that she had been noticed. Jane’s brother, Bob, was scratching his nose and shifting from foot to foot.

Jane looked over the group to the large granite armed service memorials farther down the hill by the main parking lot. There was a man there, sitting on a bench filing his nails. She didn’t know why this should startle her. He lifted his left hand in front of his face and spread the fingers. The sun was above and behind him. It shone through the spaces between the fingers and darkened the palm. The man having apparently examined his work proceeded to curl the digits and began calmly and delicately to rub the emery board back and forth over the offending nail. Jane looked away feeling as though she had inadvertently caught someone in the bath.

In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God our brother, John, and we commit his body to the ground.

Father Garcia was offering Jane the aspergillum. She dipped the brush in the holy water and sprinkled the coffin. Catherine followed her example as did the dozen or so people who had followed them to the cemetery.

Jane looked down the hill again. The man was gone. She felt a vague sense of disappointment.

May the love of God and the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ bless and console us: in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Go in the peace of Christ.

Thanks be to God.

Chapter 2

You have to use fresh garlic and crush it. You can never really dice it fine enough.

Well it’s just about the best dip I’ve ever had. What all’s in it? Shelly, have you tried Joyce’s dip? It’s to die for. Roberta King’s eyes grew wide, she glanced over at Jane where she was perched on the edge of the blue flowered glider rocker in the living room and hastily continued on, Oh look, there’s Lois. What a pretty dress she’s wearing. Roberta moved off with a nervous smile and a sense of purpose.

Joyce and Shelly were left standing by the dip, their paper plates in one hand, their forks in the other and a conversational hole between them, which they rapidly filled with dip and a discussion concerning the status of the Wounded Warrior project that the Women’s Guild was currently working on. They both wandered away.

The long folding table had been borrowed from the parish, covered with a plastic red checkered tablecloth, and then filled with casseroles, salads, desserts, a cold cut platter purchased from the local grocery by Catherine and the ever-present metal carafes, also borrowed from the parish and containing mediocre coffee and hot water for tea.

Catherine brought Jane a plate of food and a cup of tea and Jane settled back on the rocker. The creamy, sweet potato salad had never been a favorite of Jane’s, she’d always preferred oil and vinegar dressing. Jane set her plate on the coffee table, held her cup of tea with both hands and watched people move into small groups, then gradually peel away to form another group in a slightly different location. It was rather like watching cloud formations float and change. There was a certain calming quality to the whole thing.

So, how are you doing, Jane? Bob appeared seemingly out of thin air on her right and began patting her awkwardly on the shoulder.

Fine, Bob, fine. Catherine’s been a big help.

Bob smiled and stood up straighter. She’s a good girl, Jane. Don’t know what I did to deserve her. She must take after her mother.

Jane tried to move the corners of her mouth upward, but they seemed to stick somewhere along the way.

Bob, cleared his throat and began speaking rather quickly, Well, I’ve gotten John’s insurance taken care of. With his pension, you should be all right. I’d stay longer you know, but there’s the board meeting and June and I were going up to visit Sam at school, but if you need me to stay I could…

That’s fine, Bob. You’ve been wonderful. No need to stay longer.

Bob hovered a while until Cora Owens came by, sat down next to Jane and said, You must be exhausted. Bob seemed to disappear then, suddenly, using the same magical method he’d used to arrive next to her in the first place.

I know it’s early days yet, Jane. But I remember when Stan died; I couldn’t breathe for a while. You just have to pick yourself up though and go on. There are a group of us who get together and… Cora’s lips continued to move, but someone seemed to have turned the volume way down because Jane couldn’t understand what she was saying. Jane looked over Cora’s shoulder and out the window. A man stood there, a tallish almost impossibly slender young man with tiny gold studs glistening in his ears and fair hair long on top and combed backward away from his face. He had his hands on his hips and was looking around him with a certain amount of distaste. Jane had never seen him before and he didn’t seem to fit. If he was a potential burglar casing the joint, he didn’t look pleased with the potential. Wednesdays, we play bridge and Thursday is Book Group night. Jane looked blankly at Cora, someone had turned the volume back up and Jane felt that she’d come in part way through an episode of some television show and had missed key elements of the plot. Cora seemed to note the blank stare, or she had finished what she had been going to say, because she put her hand on Jane’s knee and squeezed. Call me when you feel up to it. Then she too disappeared.

People continued to pop in and out of existence around Jane for what seemed a very long time. Eventually they began to come and formally take their leave before disappearing permanently. The house cleared until it was Lois and Bert and a few other Women’s Guild ladies putting food away, folding up the long table, boxing up the carafes and then gradually disappearing as well, leaving Jane, Catherine and Bob standing by the closed front door.

The three of them drifted back into the living room and sank wordlessly and at maximum distance from each other into various seats. Legs and arms were stretched out to their fullest extent; heads leaned back and eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling. They stayed like that for what seemed quite a while.

I guess I’ll give June a call. I told her I’d give her a call after…if you’re sure, I’ll let her know that I’m coming home tomorrow.

Definitely, Bob. You go home. It was good of you to come. You and Catherine need to get on with things. Catherine, you give Rich a call, too.

Catherine and Bob looked at her briefly, then at each other and left the room one after the other, slowly, as though they didn’t want to seem too eager. Poor creatures, Jane thought.

For the first time since John had left, Jane was alone. All she felt for the moment was relief.

Chapter 3

It had been over a week since the funeral. For the first week, someone had called Jane almost every day. Catherine and Bob seemed to have coordinated their calls because they were evenly spaced as though the two of them had made a schedule in consultation with each other. Most probably that’s what they’d done and Jane was grateful that they had cared enough to do so; though the conversations were inevitably the same and a bit wearing. The calls were tapering off now.

Pat and Maureen had returned from Ireland and came by together with food: single portion stews and casseroles in freezer bags, bagged salad and bottled dressing; things that required a microwave, a refrigerator and minimal effort on Jane’s part.

They offered their condolences and then, at Jane’s insistence, they sat down in the living room. Before the same litany of concerned questions began that had dogged Jane since John had passed, Jane intervened.

How was your trip to Ireland?

It was very nice, Jane. Pat clasped her thin tanned hands in her lap.

Yes, very nice. Maureen echoed Pat in restrained intonation and in clasping hands though hers were thicker and were the fair freckled hands of a redhead.

Did you go to Knock?

Why yes, we did. It sounded to Jane as though Pat were admitting to seeing an X rated movie, not a religious site. Very nice, though not quite as impressive as I was expecting.

Nothing like Lourdes. Maureen twisted the silver charm bracelet on her left wrist. The bracelet jingled and Maureen let it go.

Jane tried again, And the Cliffs of Moher? Did you see them?

Maureen took a breath, Yes, yes we did.

Jane felt like a wartime interrogator whose patriotic prisoners were determined to give their rank and serial number and nothing more. She pressed on, I hear the view is amazing. You can see the Aran Islands. How high are the cliffs?

Over 700 feet, Jane, and the most amazing view I’ve ever seen. Maureen paused with a look of dismay, her eyes wide, her lips slightly parted, as though realizing that she’d inadvertently given out vital information. Then, seeming to decide that all was lost anyway, she went on to describe the view, the Aran Islands, their trip to Inishmore, Neolithic ruins, Dublin, pubs, singing, walks in the rain and even the taste of stout.

Pat held out a little longer, adjusted her glasses, decided that security had already been breached, and joined Maureen speaking over and between her friend as though one were the warp and the other the woof in a tapestry. Jane sat back in relief and let the threads of eager description tie her, if only for a moment, to the rest of humanity. She could almost, but not quite, touch their excitement and pleasure.

Jane’s visitors left with promises that they would return with photos and various souvenirs. Thank heaven for tourists.

Friends, parish acquaintances, neighbors continued to call and occasionally visit, usually with food in hand. The visits and the calls were generally brief. People were very careful, afraid to wound or to pry. There seemed to be a thick glass pane between Jane and the rest of the world.

When Jane was alone, the cold emptiness settled on her like a thick fog. She had no desire to think or to move. Everything hurt. She hadn’t just lost John, her friend, lover and companion, she’d lost the only other person in the world who had carried Gerry in his heart and memory the way she did. They could go to a movie, hear a song, share a meal and look at each other and know that they were both thinking, Gerry would have liked this, or Gerry listened to this song. Sometimes they’d verbalize it, more often it was a shared glance or a touch of the hand and they’d both just know. In a way, Gerry was still there. Now it was only Jane and she was afraid, so afraid that she wasn’t enough to keep them both alive. The warmth and love that both John and Gerry represented was going to slip away because she wasn’t strong enough to hold onto it alone.

Jane had hoped to spend longer sleeping. She’d always liked sleeping. A good nap was something both she and John had enjoyed. They were connoisseurs of sleep: the different levels, qualities, and flavors. They discussed sleep like other people discussed wine. Just when she most needed it, the ability to nap, to sleep in any meaningful way, was taken from her.

She had an aversion to pills. John had teased her about refusing even cold medication until the symptoms reached a level of mucus and coughing that surpassed even Jane’s threshold of endurance. Pills seemed like a weakness or like cheating or maybe she’d just seen too many articles about the dangers of drug addiction. But for the first few days after she’d lost John, she’d taken the mild tranquilizers prescribed by the doctor. She’d slept after a fashion, but had weird, formless, horrifying dreams that she could never quite remember when she woke up. She stopped taking the pills and slept less and more fitfully, tossing and turning, unable to stop thinking, unable to stop jumping at the odd sounds that you never usually noticed when you weren’t alone.

People couldn’t be there all the time and Jane didn’t want the constant company of friends who empathized but couldn’t truly share her loss. She didn’t wish her pain on them, but its intensity isolated her and sometimes made it hard to breathe. Jane had to figure out how to fill her time, how to keep functioning.

Exercise was what she needed, she decided. Exercise was supposed to be very therapeutic. When she and John had both been working, they’d made a point of getting up early enough, often when it was still dark outside, to walk together on a set path around their neighborhood of small two-bedroom homes and tiny front yards, through the newer development to their west of larger, more luxurious dwellings that backed up on canyons with views. They used to see the same people every morning. It was a fine art to discern the exact moment to look up and wave or to say hello. If you did it too soon, you were left with an excess of time when you either had to look awkwardly in other directions or keep an insipid smile on your face until the other person passed by. If you waited too long, you missed the opportunity for a greeting and felt that you had been rude and insensitive. With some trial and error, Jane thought that she and John had become quite skilled.

It was 5:30 a.m. and Jane found herself lying on her side, staring at the small digital clock next to the bed, waiting for the little lighted numbers to flip over and battling the knot in her stomach that seemed to be her constant companion. She reached over, turned on the lamp and sat up. Throwing her legs over the side of the bed, she stared at the